Spending changes may be on the cards with fewer visits to cashpoints

THE REOPENING of more businesses from today could prompt more visits to cash machines, although some shoppers may have changed their habits for good.

Shops, hairdressers and pub beer gardens are among those reopening in England as the next step in the roadmap out of lockdown is taken.

Graham Mott, the director of strategy at Link, the UK’s main ATM network, said it would be interesting to see how many people are paying for their first rounds in the pub in “good old cash”, and how many are turning to cards. ATM use plunged early on in the coronavirus lockdowns, with some retailers discouraging shoppers from using cash.

However, Bank of England research has previously indicated that the risk of catching coronavirus from banknotes is low.

Plans to hike the contactless card spending limit to £100, from £45, were announced in the recent Budget, which could also mean shoppers turning away from using cash.

The limit was previously raised to £45, from £30, in 2020, and the banking industry will implement the new £100 limit later this year.

Shoppers have also become used to doing bigger chunks of their spending online over the past year.

Recent card spending figures from trade association UK Finance showed a record proportion of Christmas shopping was carried out online in December 2020.

Online spending accounted for around a third of the total value of credit and debit card spending in the UK in December, it said. This was up from 28 per cent in December 2019.